Florence v JetBlue Airways Corporation and Torch Concepts, Inc.
JetBlue Airways And Torch Concepts May Know More About You Than Your Friends Do
Several class actions have been filed against JetBlue Airways Corporation and Torch Concepts, Inc. on behalf of passengers who allege that JetBlue gave their private information to Torch Concepts, a U.S. defense contractor, in violation of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and their rights to privacy. The actions seeks destruction of the transferred data, statutory damages of $1,000 per violation plus unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
On September 19, 2003, JetBlue announced publicly that it gave Torch Concepts five million electronically stored passenger names, addresses, phone numbers, and itineraries in September 2002. Torch is a data-mining company that has made much of its money through U.S. defense contracts. Torch allegedly took the information from JetBlue and paired it with information from another demographics data-mining company, Acxiom Corporation, which is not named as a defendant in this action. Based on the compiled information, Torch produced a study, "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," that JetBlue has indicated was used to help the government improve military base security.
The airline's privacy policy published online says "the financial and personal information collected on this site is not shared with any third parties."
On September 22, 2003, the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing JetBlue of engaging in deceptive trade practices. That complaint does include Acxiom Corporation as one of the offenders. The Acxiom information allegedly included passenger Social Security numbers along with financial and family information.
Despite what JetBlue claims it was told by the Department of Defense and Torch Concepts, privacy advocates fear the information was used to create a prototype for a nationwide computer system being developed by the Transportation Security Administration. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress ordered a system developed that would check passengers' credit reports and consumer transactions, then compare the information with security "watch lists."
According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center's FTC complaint, Torch presented the study "Homeland Security Airline Passenger Risk Assessment" at a February 2003 defense industry conference. The presentation allegedly included an example of information on an unnamed JetBlue passenger complete down to previous addresses, lengths of residence, Social Security number and date of birth. Up until mid-September 2003, the study was allegedly posted on an defense industry Internet site.
The class action adds to this with the frightening allegation that Torch Concepts touted that this system would be able to comprehensively classify the flying habits of the entire database of passengers if it only had their short-term and lifetime flying records. It could then classify each passenger as green, meaning no threat; yellow, needing more careful security precautions; or red, meaning that the passenger should not be allowed to fly.
On July 29, 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon in New York City found that JetBlue had violated its agreement not to share passenger data by sharing the information at the behest of the Transportation Security Administration, but Judge Amon said the passengers could not prove any damages. The case was dismissed. Additionally, in an order signed July 29, 2005 Amon also rejected a claim that JetBlue unjustly enriched itself.
